Silent Films, Silent Sorrow

A collection of Mikio Naruse's earliest movies, where the Japanese auteur poignantly portrays thwarted hopes and compromised dreams.

By

David Mermelstein

Updated May 27, 2011 12:01 a.m. ET

Those who cherish Japanese cinema for its matchless ability to depict lives of quiet desperation rightly revere the directors Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi. Less renowned outside Japan is their similarly gifted near-contemporary Mikio Naruse (1905-1969), a keen and sympathetic observer of those on society's margins, often geishas. He remains best known in the West for two outstanding films from late in his career: "Floating Clouds" (1955) and "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs" (1960), each a quintessential example of Japanese moviemaking from its golden age, from right after World War II through...